I have a large timeline edited in Vegas. I'd like to try color grading in Resolve.
What would the workflow be for me to move my Vegas edit to Davinci Resolve for the color grade?
Also, I'd like to maintain the resolution of the original timeline.
Thanks for any input !!!
Chris
It is quite tricky. You do need to have good knowledge of both Vegas and Resolve.
If you search the forum for XML export, you will see people are struggling, and blaming Vegas for an incorrect XML file. In my view, this is not completely fair or accurate. The problem seems to be connected to SOURCE CLIP TIMECODE, and Vegas seems to correctly read and report some file types, but not others.
Even if you get XML export to work, you still have all sorts of issues relating to transitions and other incompatible effects.
I recommend you do a workflow test before you even consider trying your "large" timeline.
Example of what can work:
1) Start in Resolve. Import ALL media. Make cineform proxies with (or without) a "basic" fast & dirty grade. Edit these in Vegas. Back to resolve and do finish grade on those clips. Export best quality cineform to overwrite proxies. Vegas will now "see" these and you can render final.
2) Render a single "flattened / no transitions" file out of Vegas using a visually lossless intermediate (likely cineform), import into resolve. Manually or automatically slice into clips. Add transitions and effects, Grade and export.
Hi Kinvermark -
Wow, thanks for the thorough response!
Your number 2 option seems easier to me. Is there a loss in resolution when exporting to cineform?
Thanks,
Chris
Cineform is considered a "visually lossless" codec. So in practical terms there is no degradation.
Le us know how you make out. Like you, I am quite interested in this topic.
Much thanks! I will let you know of my results!
Make sure the working codec can be accepted on both application.
And yes, I agree with Kinvermark - do short test, and try experiment with several features you gonna need, and see if those are supported in Resolve.
Keep update...
How are you folks getting your Cineform codec, are you installing Go Pro? Cineform shows up in my render options, but if I try to use it it says it is not to be found....thanks in advance people.
I actually did this process recently, and found the trickiest bit was getting Resolve to conform the clips due to Resolve's weird limitation on "Project" framerate (makes sense in a distribution context, but not so much if you're not working on Film/TV projects).
The things that worked well:
Things that didn't work so well:
In the end, I got so fed up of the audio import issues that I rendered the audio as a wave file in Vegas and replaced the Resolve timeline audio with the rendered version. That worked great (until export, where there were some sync issues, but that is a problem in Resolve I've encountered before and nothing to do with Vegas Pro!)
Kinvemark is spot on with his comments and suggestions though - if you can flatten things before export to Resolve and then reslice for the sections you want graded, that would probably be the easiest way to do it, and would maintain timeline consistency (and AV sync) throughout!
How are you folks getting your Cineform codec, are you installing Go Pro? Cineform shows up in my render options, but if I try to use it it says it is not to be found....thanks in advance people.
Yeah - I installed the older GoPro Studio on my system to get Cineform. Works a treat!
@zdogg There is a link in this article:
Did you use Vegas' export XML for Davinci? What media types did you use (test)? I found Vegas won't pick up the clip timecode from my GH5 MP4 files but will read it from cineform files exported from Resolve.
Another niggling problem for me is how to handle animated stills, but this is really a Resolve issue rather than a Vegas export issue.
@zdogg There is a link in this article:
Did you use Vegas' export XML for Davinci? What media types did you use (test)? I found Vegas won't pick up the clip timecode from my GH5 MP4 files but will read it from cineform files exported from Resolve.
Another niggling problem for me is how to handle animated stills, but this is really a Resolve issue rather than a Vegas export issue.
The clips were h264/AVC files in a mov container, from my Olympus PEN EPL6, and Cineform in an AVI container.
I did use the Final Cut/Resolve XML export option.
Strangely enough, the h264 files were fine in Resolve, but I had to manually resync the Cineform files (they had Alpha channels though, so maybe that confused Resolve?)
And that is also exactly where I got the Cineform codec from 😂.
Thanks.
PS Sorry, one more question: which Vegas color grading effects carried through?
I'm not at my computer right now, but I think it was the basic color corrector plugin (really I should have used the term colour correction rather than colour grading as that implies significant changes rather than just "tuning up" footage!)
I'll check when I get the opportunity and let you know the full details.
OK - so it actually didn't pass through the grades! I'd just shot the original well enough that when I corrected it, the correction was so subtle that I didn't notice the difference in Resolve due to slight differences in the in-built view windows of Vegas and Resolve...
I'll go and be suitably embarrassed now 😂.
No worries! 😀
Not having colour pass-thru to Resolve is not really a big deal, I think. Might be able to work-around by using a LUT or common OFX plug-in like Filmconvert, although this would be an overall look/correction rather than clip by clip for obvious reasons.